Johanna X Sharon F F Pt 02

Chapter 2:

8:00 AM

The first warm beams of winter light shone through the vents of the shutters and broke on my face. These, along with a chill down my spine from the low temperatures helped wake me from my sleep. I love winter and prefer it to summer. As I stretch out under the warm covers I hear a knock on the door.

"Who is it?" I say, suppressing a yawn.

"Miss it's me, Sharon."

I wonder what she's doing here. Isn't it customary to wait for the room owner to leave before rearranging the room? I realize I have a hint of irritation. I like to take my morning slow.

"Come on," I say.

Before I can see I hear the creak of a door not quite properly oiled. I pull the covers off my face and see her. Sharon walks in holding a tray. I don't have perfect eyesight yet, but I can smell that the tray contains toast with jam and a nice cup of coffee. My eyesight on the other hand is sharp enough to see Sharon. She's wearing her waitress uniform: a short-sleeved black blouse with a skirt that reaches just above her knees, a pair of thick black stockings to preserve her legs from the low temperatures and a pair of low heels on her feet. I have to say that she looks really good in the outfit. I can observe the shape of her legs, slender and toned. I have to acknowledge her beauty. She has nothing to envy me. However, our "working" relationship does not make me fearful of her.

While I'm thinking all this she lays the tray on my bed with a smile.

"Good morning," she says to me. "Enjoy your breakfast Miss."

As she was getting ready to leave I awoke from the trance of sleep and asked her

"How come you want to be a waitress? You're so young, you could be doing anything else."

" I'm doing well here and selling paid decently. In addition, since childhood I have helped my mother with the chores. I don't disdain this kind of work and judging by the place I'd say I got a golden opportunity. Your mother is very nice, and you don't look too bad yourself."

"I see." It seemed like an intelligent and sensible answer.

"Then have a nice breakfast, Miss."

"Good work to you."

I enjoyed the breakfast she had prepared. The jam he had used was strawberry jam, my favorite. Surely he had asked my mother what my favorite flavor was. That was nice of him. Three quarters of an hour later she knocked again and asked if she could start dusting.

"Is it okay if I start while you're still here? You know, I have a lot of things to do, but if it's any trouble I'll come back later."

"That's okay. You can go ahead." I was trying to befriend her and show her that I wasn't a snob who looked down on people lower on the social scale. Suddenly I remembered the times when I still hadn't gotten used to Agnes' presence. I was very small and treated her badly, I didn't like the idea of having a stranger in the house. Soon after, I remembered that over time my relationship with Agnes improved so much that I gave her a bouquet of flowers at her retirement. I wanted the relationship with Sharon to start differently. I had grown up and felt like an adult, I felt mature. My goal was to be permissive, she was still my age, but firm in the moments when I needed to impose my authority. I turned on the television in the room to let some time pass while she cleaned, and also to not create an awkward silence.

"Have you done anything since graduation?"

"After I turned eighteen I studied for a year in psychology school, however I dropped out. It wasn't for me the environment."

"Understood. If my questions bother you, you can tell me."

"Not at all, in fact it's nice to have an interlocutor while I'm doing chores," she said laughing.

I laughed along with her. Something had moved and I wasn't about to let it die.

"What are you watching?"

"A documentary about dolphins. It's very cool you know. I just found out that dolphins use puffer fish as a drug."

Sharon burst into thunderous laughter.

"Dolphins doing drugs? No way."

"Yes, I mean it, look at this. I'll send the program back."

"Excuse me, but I'm a little incapacitated."

"Stop for a moment. You'll resume after you watch the piece. It's not like the world is ending you know."

A moment of indecision on her face, a rippled lip, a wrinkle on her forehead signifying the processing of a thought, before she said:

"Alright Miss, wait a minute."

Sharon put down the washcloth and got on the bed next to me. In order not to soil the bed she had removed her ballet flats, and since her job involved moving around a lot to do chores, the black stockings had trapped the not-so-pleasant aroma of feet after a physical exertion. I couldn't see them, but I could feel the touch of his fingertips on my thigh. A shiver ran through me, surely caused by the nervous stimulus that came to my brain caused by the temperature difference, caused in turn by the cold sweat of his foot. Or so I thought at the time. We spent three quarters of an hour in merriment, sometimes making comments on the rather hilarious behavior of the dolphins. When the program ended, Sharon elegantly got up from my bed and stood in front of me and asked me if I needed anything. I said no. Then she said with a slight bow:

"Then with your permission, Miss."

"Call me Johanna." I said smiling.

She looked at me and raised an eyebrow, then smiled back and turned on her heel and walked out of the room, closing the door.

From Sharon's Diary

Dear Diary, fortunately all my worries about Johanna's alleged temper were quite unfounded. She doesn't act like a snob at all, on the contrary, she is a kind soul. She even invited me to watch a TV show with her during working hours. It was a program about dolphins. Did you know they could do drugs? Now I'm not an expert in this job, also because I'm only 22, but I don't think that in other homes maids watch TV shows with their hosts. Instead, I think we could become friends. The pleasant working atmosphere also stimulates one to work well.